The Butcher of St Peter's: (Knights Templar 19) (22 page)

He was standing now, with his back to her. ‘What else did she say?’

‘Eh? Nothing much. Only that you and Daniel never hit it off.’

‘Nothing else?’

There it was again, a certain edge to his tone that put her in mind of the long, cold stare of a viper before it struck. ‘No.
What else could there be?’

‘I’d go back and make sure that she doesn’t try to tell anyone anything silly,’ he said, turning and facing her at last. ‘I
wouldn’t want stories circulating about me for no reason.’ He smiled.

‘What sort of story could there be?’

He stared at her. Was it possible that this stupid bitch really didn’t know what he had been up to all these years? He had
only picked on her because she was a way into the household of the sergeant, a fact which had made it all the easier to learn
the simplest way to kill him. She must know; she must surely have guessed. That was why she was putting on this stupid
front. Even as he stared, his head started to throb again. A very faint, keening whistle started to distract him.

It was only a short time ago that he had threatened to kill Juliana and her children, and since then he had not bothered to
see Agnes again. There seemed little point. He was convinced that Juliana must have told her sister all about him. Agnes
must
know all that Daniel did. Except there was a vulnerability about her. Surely she couldn’t think that he was innocent . .
.

‘Well, you go back and speak to Juliana,’ he said.

‘Yes. Of course,’ she said happily, and she gave him a smile as she left.

She’d known all along that there was no truth in the silly story. How could anyone think that her darling man could murder?
It was absurd.

At the door she turned to wave, and caught sight of a cold, dead expression in his eyes. Just for a moment she saw him stare
at her almost like a butcher studying a hog to be slaughtered, and then it was gone and her quick apprehension left her as
he smiled and waved back.

No, she had imagined that expression. Her man could never wear a look like that. He loved her … and then she was pulled
up in the middle of the street as a terrible thought struck her.

Juliana had said Jordan had threatened her, but what if he desired
her
now? Perhaps Juliana had stolen his heart, just as she had taken Daniel’s when it was really Agnes he loved.

No. This was nonsense. Jordan loved
her
, and no one else.

If only he wasn’t already married. Agnes could wish Mazeline dead.

The last time Baldwin had seen Simon Puttock, the bailiff had been leaving for Dartmouth again. Now, as he entered the Dean’s
hall and saw the bailiff standing cupping a goblet of wine in his hand at the window, Baldwin felt for the first time very
little joy.

When they had parted, only a couple of weeks ago, Baldwin had been sad to see his companion leaving for his new home, but
that sadness was caused by the knowledge that he wouldn’t be seeing Simon again for some while. Now, seeing Simon here in
the Dean’s house, he knew full well that there must be a good reason for the bailiff’s appearance. Especially since Simon
had plainly ridden from Dartmouth and had come straight here without taking time for a rest. His hosen and padded coat were
thickly spattered with mud of various hues: dull, peaty marks from around Dartmoor, lighter clay soil from the lands about
Totnes, and bright red mud from nearer Exeter.

Tall and muscular, his features burned by the sun during his journeys in the last few months, Simon was a strong, powerful
man with intelligence shining in his dark grey eyes. As the Abbot of Tavistock’s man in Dartmoor, he had come a long way since
Baldwin had first met him seven or so years ago, and those years had been fairly kind to him. The only
sign that he was over six and thirty was the greying hair at his temples.

‘I came as soon as your messenger arrived, Dean,’ he said warily. ‘Simon, God speed.’

‘Sir Baldwin, I should like to, er, consult you and Simon on a matter of some delicacy.’

‘Dean, I think that you should speak to the Coroner, Sir Peregrine, if you have any problems. I am still recovering,’ he added,
indicating the sling which his wife had insisted that he must wear to come here.

‘Please, both, be seated. Ah, I appreciate your wounds have caused you some discomfort, and I only hope that my own request
will not prove to be – um – onerous.’

‘My wife is packing as we speak, Dean, and I was hoping to be at Crediton before nightfall,’ Baldwin said.

‘Let me explain the problem, and then, if there is nothing you may do to, er, help us, then, um, you may feel free to leave
immediately.’

With a bad grace Baldwin sat in a chair and listened. He knew the Dean. The man was damnably persuasive, and if he wanted
Baldwin to remain here for a short while, it would upset poor Jeanne terribly. She was counting on returning home so that
she could see their daughter Richalda again. It felt like too long since they had last seen her.

‘Sir Baldwin, um, we here in the chapter have had problems with the Dominicans, the Friars Preacher, for many years now. It
all started when they – uh – began to encroach on our rights, just as happened in so many other dioceses. They took away some
of our, er, flock by offering to listen to confessions, and we never thought that a good idea …’

‘Was it very expensive to lose the penances?’ Simon asked cheekily.

‘No, it, um, wasn’t that,’ the Dean said. He fiddled with the ring on his forefinger. ‘If a member of the congregation has
committed a dreadful sin, they should, um, go and confess to their own priest. If they go to some itinerant Black Friar, whom
they have, er, never met before and in all likelihood never will again, there is less, um, trepidation on their part. They
will go to confession with a lighter heart. It must be less morally efficacious. And the penances may be entirely too light,
which, um, means that they undermine the authority of the parish priest.’

‘I can scarcely believe that this is enough to cause you problems,’ Baldwin said.

‘It is not. They next, er, tried to take on our privilege of burying people. Of course, we have never, er, stopped them burying
their own in their cloister. It is entirely right that dead friars should be buried on their own lands. But when they, er,
try to take over lay burials, the whole matter changes. And that is what they have done. They took Henry Ralegh at about the
turn of the century, and tried to bury him. That was so flagrant a, um, trespass, that we felt, some of us, that something
must be done. So two members of the chapter hurried there with some servants as soon as we heard of it. Um.’

Baldwin looked at Simon. The bailiff was studying the Dean with an expression of amused tolerance. He glanced at Baldwin and
grinned at the Dean’s discomfort.

‘It all came to a head that day, really. It, er, ended sourly. The two and their servants broke into the chapel and took the
body, the cloth, the ornaments and candles,
everything
! All of it was quite legitimately ours, not the Black Friars’, um. But of course they fiercely denied any such suggestion.
They alleged that, um, they had the right to bury a confrater who had lived with them as one of them, even if he had not actually
taken on
their habit. It was, um, as you can imagine, er, quite a difficult time.’

Simon gulped his wine enthusiastically. ‘So what happened? You held the funeral and buried the man, and …’

‘We held his – ah – funeral, but when we, er, took the body back to the friars, they locked their gates against us. Quite,
um, childish. Naturally, there was little we could do. So we, um, left him there.’

Simon sprayed wine and guffawed. ‘You left the poor … fellow out there? What, just dumped the body and ran back to the
cathedral?’

The Dean scowled distastefully. ‘We, er, had a duty to return the body to them, we felt.’

‘But you kept the candles, the cloth, the estate …’ Simon grinned.

‘They were ours. Yet if they, er, wanted to have the body, we felt …’

‘They could keep it. I think we understand.’

‘Unfortunately that was not the end of the matter. They pursued the canons involved quite, um,
relentlessly
. Entirely unnecessary and pointless, of course, and we won all the cases they brought against us.’

Simon’s face cleared. ‘My … you mean this is the matter that so affected the Bishop for all those years before he was
installed?’

‘Yes. He was, er, one of the two canons involved.’

Baldwin shrugged. ‘This is all old history, though. What does it have to do with us now?’

‘Feelings between our two, er, institutions have not eased over time. In fact, I would, er, say that they have deteriorated
recently.’

‘Why is that?’ Simon asked.

From his tone of voice Baldwin could tell that he was enjoying the Dean’s discomfiture. It was not that Simon disliked the
Dean, but to hear that such pettiness had erupted between two such powerful organizations was enough to amuse any man. Not
Baldwin, though; not today. He had the feeling that this was leading up to his remaining in the city for a while, and he did
not like the idea.

The Dean shook his head. ‘It started over the affair of Gilbert de Knovil’s money. Do you, ah, remember him? He was a Justice,
and the Sheriff at the time. No? Well, he was a reliable man, when it came to his money. He deposited some with the Friars
Preacher, and they, um … well, one of their fellows, Nicholas Sandekyn from Bristol, took it. And another friar knew of
the theft, as did three successive priors. So, we here in the chapter, um, rather enjoyed their embarrassment.’

‘As you would,’ Simon said. He was trying to keep a straight face.

‘Yes. Um. Well, all was cool between us for some little while, but recently they have been exercising themselves against us
under their new prior, Guibert. He, um, dislikes the chapter because he was one of those who witnessed our canons taking Ralegh’s
body. And the fact that some, ah, canons thought it amusing to make fun of the friars when the theft was discovered did not
endear us to him.’

‘So what has made matters worse recently?’ Baldwin asked.

The Dean squirmed in his seat, winced, looked up at the ceiling, and then sighed. ‘We have had a theft from a visitor . .
. and a rash canon removed a second body from their chapel.’

Simon nodded seriously. He took a deep breath, looked at Baldwin, and roared with laughter.

Jordan sat in his chair for a long time after she left.

The
whore
, she
had
to know that he had been involved. Agnes couldn’t be so stupid as not to have noticed that he and Daniel detested each other.
Anyway, Juliana must have told her. So Agnes was threatening … what? If Juliana accused him, no one hearing her could
possibly doubt that Jordan had made sure Daniel was at last dead.

It was ridiculous to be so battened down. He was one of the wealthiest men in Exeter, and certainly one of the most powerful,
bearing in mind all the men he had at his beck and call, and yet just now a tiny slip of a wench had him seriously humiliated.
The poisonous bitch deserved to be swung by the ankles and dropped over the city walls. Except if Agnes were to suddenly die
as well, Juliana would be bound to wonder whether her dear older sister’s death could be anything to do with Jordan. No one
could be so stupid as to miss that. Ach! His head was
hurting
! The whistling in his ears was incessant, and so loud he wondered no one else could hear it.

The little bitch was dangerous, that much was certain. Juliana was a problem too. He could show exactly where he was on the
night Daniel was murdered, but after the way the receiver and the clerk responded to him that morning, he realized that there
were many who’d be willing to listen with an open mind to accusations that he had himself planned Daniel’s murder. Especially
since Agnes had made that snide little comment. He must make sure that Reg kept quiet about things.

It was a while since Daniel had first declared that Jordan must never be allowed inside his house again. Agnes had spoken
very carefully, as though testing him.

‘Daniel is keen to find felons in the city, isn’t he?’ she had said.

‘He is a sergeant. I suppose he must look for crime everywhere he goes,’ Jordan had replied smoothly.

‘In some cases he knows exactly where to look. He says you are lucky because you haven’t been caught yet. Did you know he’s
been chasing you ever since the famine? He kept that to himself after a while, poor Daniel. But just think what others would
think if they were told. You should keep your efforts hidden, lover!’ She had giggled then, and reached for him, as though
she thought that making love with a felon was a delightful distraction and amusement for her.

He didn’t need to think at the time; he had known perfectly well what people would have thought. They would have thought that
Jordan was a bit of a daring soul, but a good fellow on the whole. If he was involved in a little naughty behaviour, keeping
whores and gambling dens, so much the better. Most of the men in the city would visit his establishments at one time or another.
Yes, they would have looked up to him, most of them. And some of the more senior merchants might have sought his friendship
in order to gain preferential rates.

But now Daniel had died because he was close to showing that Jordan was busy making money illegally. That might just lead
a few people to investigate him more closely. That Keeper, or the Coroner … either could cause him some difficulty. He
should have thought of this; should have planned this aspect better. He hadn’t thought that Juliana would tell her sister
all, though. The bitches hadn’t seemed to trust each other before. Why should they start now? He couldn’t understand it.

Juliana was a threat. He had to remove her. Agnes thought she was safe with him, but she’d proved that she was as dangerous
as her sister. In the past she’d been his ally; now it seemed she was her sister’s, first and foremost.

He could do the same as before, maybe: pay someone else to kill them both while Jordan was visible somewhere else, prominently
drinking or playing with his companions …

Jordan frowned. Perhaps he was being too sensitive. If he went to Juliana and spoke to her, he’d soon see whether Agnes had
been telling the truth. Just the first moment of entering the room would tell him whether Juliana had really said what Agnes
said she had. And if she hadn’t?

If Juliana knew nothing, God help her sister: if Juliana knew nothing, Agnes must have realized herself what had happened,
and
she
was the threat.

Although it was plain that Baldwin and the Dean were not amused at the tale or his own outburst, their seriousness only added
to Simon’s mirth. He couldn’t help it – the sight of the Dean wriggling like a fish on a hook at having to confess to his
chapter’s foolishness was too delightful.

‘Dean, I am deeply sorry. Please excuse my foolishness. I don’t know what caused it,’ he managed after a pause.

‘It is no, ah, laughing matter, bailiff. This goes to the heart of our chapter. It would be seriously embarrassing to the
Bishop were this all to come into the open.’

Baldwin cleared his throat. ‘You want our advice?’

‘Please.’

‘Prepare for the worst. They have you, Dean. You have one hothead who has created this problem. You could try to punish him
and make an exhibition of him.’

‘Why, for preventing the friars from going ahead with a funeral when they were not entitled to the estate? The fellow could
have been innocent. Others have done the same, after all.’

‘So you say,’ Baldwin said.

Simon was confused by one aspect. ‘The Bishop will support you and the canon involved, won’t he? Well, then. Tell the friars
to go and …’

‘Just my thought, which was why I considered a little more deeply, bailiff. I believe that they know that this could embarrass
our Bishop. If, um, it was to the advantage of someone to harm the Bishop, they might, ah, choose to make the chapter the
means of his destruction, might they not? They could, er, think that there was some form of amusing justice in such a plan.’

‘But how could they think to embarrass the Bishop? They’d have to have powerful allies to do that,’ Simon scoffed, but then
his humour disappeared. ‘You mean the Despensers?’

‘I prefer not to think of any one person in particular,’ the Dean said precisely, but he lowered his head and peered at the
two men from under his brows. ‘But think what a gift it would be to cementing their power if the only man who stood against
them in the King’s favour was himself damaged. If he could be dragged back here to help sort out a dispute, that would give
unfettered rein to their ambitions.’